French lawyers call for ICC investigation into 'war crimes' at Rojava camps

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A group of French lawyers on Tuesday sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for an investigation into possible "war crimes" being committed against French children and mothers in camps in northeastern Syria (Rojava), specifically naming French President Emmanuel Macron as culpable.

The lawyers, listed as Marie Dose, Ludovic Riviere and Gerard Tcholakian, announced in a press release on Tuesday that they had sent a communication to the ICC’s prosecutor regarding the languishing of nearly two hundred French children in inhumane conditions in camps in Rojava, describing Macron as “author and/or accomplice of those crimes.”

Al-Hol camp, in northeast Syria’s Hasaka province is home to nearly 62,000 people, mostly women and children linked to Islamic State (ISIS) militants. Conditions in the camp have previously been condemned by Human Rights Watch (HRW) as “filthy and often inhuman.”

Kurdish authorities and international aid organizations have repeatedly called on the international community to repatriate their citizens, deeming the current efforts as insufficient.

“Despite these appeals, the President of the French Republic, particularly through the voice of his special advisor and national intelligence coordinator M. Laurent Nunez, refused the repatriation of these women and children,” reads the lawyers’ statement, saying taking back the citizens was the only way to alleviate their suffering.

HRW earlier in March criticized Kurdish authorities for continuing to arbitrarily detain tens of thousands of foreign nationals, and the detainee’s home countries for their “explicit or implicit consent” of the detention.

Forty-five people have been murdered at al-Hol since January 1, 2021, according to data provided to Rudaw English by the Rojava Information Centre (RIC). Twenty people were murdered at the camp in January, and 10 were murdered in February. The SDF said last week that 15 people have been murdered at the camp thus far in March.

Asayish on Sunday announced the launch of a security campaign in Al-Hol camp, which it said was "targeting ISIS cells deployed in the camp.” Security forces have announced the arrests of 53 people in the latest operation.

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